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posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the sauce-for-the-goose dept.

The DNC's Lawsuit Against WikiLeaks Is an Attack on the Freedom of the Press

It's a large world, filled with felonies big and misdemeanors small. And so I prefer to write long columns. But sometimes a short, sharp word is necessary. The Democratic Party is suing WikiLeaks and they shouldn't. As Glenn Greenwald wrote last week in The Intercept:

The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit this afternoon in a Manhattan federal court against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and various individuals it alleges participated in the plot to hack its email servers and disseminate the contents as part of the 2016 election. The DNC also sued WikiLeaks for its role in publishing the hacked materials, though it does not allege that WikiLeaks participated in the hacking or even knew in advance about it; its sole role, according to the DNC's lawsuit, was publishing the hacked emails.

As Greenwald points out, the Dems' claim that "WikiLeaks is liable for damages it caused when it 'willfully and intentionally disclosed' the DNC's communications ... would mean that any media outlet that publishes misappropriated documents or emails (exactly what media outlets quite often do) could be sued by the entity or person about which they are reporting."

After the Manning releases in 2010, the Obama Justice Department wanted to sue WikiLeaks. However, they couldn't prove that anyone from WikiLeaks had actually stolen documents. They knew that suing WikiLeaks would have infringed on press freedom. Sue WikiLeaks, and you have to sue the Washington Post as well.

The DNC has no such qualms now.

Also at Al Jazeera.

See also: Why the DNC Is Fighting WikiLeaks and Not Wall Street


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Aurean on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:48PM (11 children)

    by Aurean (4924) on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:48PM (#674811)

    WikiLeaks' role in this wasn't just the dissemination of information, it was *who* they got it from and their intent behind publishing the emails.
    WikiLeaks knowingly acted in concert with the Russians and/or the Trump campaign (per Junior's messages with Assange). *That* is the problem here.

    The intent wasn't to expose wrongdoing or to serve the public - the intent was to interfere in the election.

    That's a whole different kettle of fish than whistleblowing.

    That said, any publishing of such information could be framed as such, so it's not fully justifiable.

    In this particular case, the DNC is more right than WikiLeaks.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Captival on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:53PM

    by Captival (6866) on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:53PM (#674813)

    I realize you're a moron, but Wikileaks correspondence with Trump Jr happened AFTER they publicly released [theguardian.com] the same files.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @11:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @11:06PM (#674819)

    The intent wasn't to expose wrongdoing or to serve the public - the intent was to interfere in the election.

    Case closed. Lock em all up. Get the firing squads ready.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:06AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:06AM (#674843) Journal

    You, Sir, are drinking the Kool-Aid, and believing the narrative. Do you not understand that the Kool-Aid is laced with drugs?

    The intent may or may not be important in journalism. But this whole "vast right wing conspiracy" that Hillary promoted is so much bullshit. What happens when a conspiracy grows large? It gets exposed - just like the DNC conspiracy to usurp the will of the people. The DNC conspiracy has been exposed, so they double down on the "vast right wing conspiracy". Utter bullshit.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:08AM

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:08AM (#674865) Journal

      Utter bullshit.

      Yep, and it's working like a charm. They got the whole world doing the *Russia Russia Russia* jig... And they will still successfully keep Congress evenly split between them and their tag team partner, the republicans. The voters choose between evil and crazy. That's where the Golden Ticket is.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:41AM (#674970)

      But this whole "vast right wing conspiracy" that Hillary promoted is so much bullshit.

      Ya gotta wonder, when Runaway8309 says something like this, that perhaps there is "vast right wing conspiracy", and the Runaway, knowingly or most likely otherwise, is part of it. Tell us more, Runaway. Tell us about the cattle, and the hogs, and the Pizza Pong-ping Ching-chang!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:19AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:19AM (#674868)

    But here they are again. Hopefully my hyperlinks will be up to original gewg_'s standards. How Google, Facebook and Twitter are manipulating the Mexican presidential elections—Part 1 [wsws.org] and Part 2 [wsws.org]:

    The Google and Twitter deals were announced shortly after leading representatives of these corporations gathered in Mexico City at a conference co-hosted by INE and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a CIA front organization headed by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

    Ok, so how do I get from the US D-team to the above? The CIA Democrats: Part one [wsws.org], Part two [wsws.org] and Part 3 [wsws.org].

    See also The CIA Democrats vs. Julian Assange [wsws.org]:

    The Democratic National Committee on Friday filed a 66-page complaint that reeks of McCarthyism, with overtones of the Wisconsin senator’s demagogy about “a conspiracy so vast” when he was spearheading the anticommunist witch hunts more than 70 years ago. After detailing a long list of supposed conspirators, ranging from the Russian government and its military intelligence agency GRU to the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, the complaint declares: “The conspiracy constituted an act of previously unimaginable treachery: the campaign of the presidential nominee of a major party in league with a hostile foreign power to bolster its own chance to win the Presidency.”

    Such language has had no place in official American public life since the right-wing political gangster McCarthy left the scene in the late 1950s. Ultra-right groups like the John Birch Society kept alive such smear tactics in ensuing decades, but they were relegated to the fringes of the political system. Now the Democratic Party has sought to revive these methods as the central focus of its bid for power in the 2018 elections.

    The D team is the political wing of the CIA now. The R team is... well... I wouldn't recommend it. The only way to protest using the ballot box in a way that will be heard is by voting for Greens and Libertarians. wswswswswswsws keeps talking about their Socialist Equality Party, but the Greens and Libertarians seem more credible to me.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:46PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:46PM (#675140)

      The only way to protest using the ballot box in a way that will be heard is by voting for Greens and Libertarians.

      Well, actually, I would be more inclined to vote third party if the third parties actually put credible candidates forward. Back in 2016 the Libertarians had a golden opportunity and I was definitely planning on voting third party. And I'm sure they could have easily picked up at least a few states in the Presidential election considering that Trump was on the GOP ticket. But, instead, Gary Johnson turned out to be Governor Pothead. Look, I get that Libertarians take a more isolationist stance than all the rest, but that is no excuse for being pig-ignorant about world affairs. I'm sorry, but if you did not have any idea about what was going on in Aleppo at the time then you have no business being the next Commander in Chief. And, it wasn't like this was just one gaffe on his part; he made similar gaffes on world affairs at least a couple of times after that incident (the guy was not a quick learner, another reason to take serious pause about him as a candidate for President). So, Libertarians (and all the other third parties, for that matter), you have just a couple more years to get your act together. I suggest you use your time wisely to find credible (and I must emphasize that word credible, here) candidates for the 2020 election. You need to start doing your homework on this now.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:44PM (#675297)

        Sorry. I voted for Jill Stein.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:48AM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:48AM (#674952)

    WikiLeaks knowingly acted in concert with the Russians and/or the Trump campaign..

    Stop with the DNC talking points. We know where the leak came from.

    HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH. And the Clintons added him to their long body count for betraying her. He was a disgruntled Bernie Bro who, because he was an admin, knew for a fact the Party had stolen the nomination from his guy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:43AM (#674972)

      Did you ever wonder if jmorris is actually Sean Hannity? Checks out, seems legit.

  • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:50PM

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:50PM (#675143) Journal

    >> it was *who* they got it from

    We could go ask the guy who supposedly smuggled them out.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich [wikipedia.org]

    Oh, wait, nevermind.

    I must confess that I raised a conspiracy theorist' suspicious eyebrow when I heard about his death.